


Highway to the Edge

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical language, Gen, M/M, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 22:54:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30146850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: For a split second, Mickey thought about it—just marching over and slugging one of the officers in the jaw. Cops were all a bunch of weak-chinned bastards, anyway. It wouldn’t take much to lay one out, get himself tossed back into the joint so he’d at least be safe behind bars when his dad caught word that his youngest son was a pillow-biting queer.Mickey flexed his fingers out and then curled his hand into a fist. Christ, it would be so fucking easy.Except, shit. He was eighteen now, freshly turned a few weeks before.If he got arrested now, it would be the real deal.(Or: Mickey doesn't go back to juvie in 2x08. Things change from there.)
Relationships: Ian Gallagher & Mandy Milkovich, Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich, Mandy Milkovich & Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57





	Highway to the Edge

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, what happened here is that I did some math wrong and erroneously thought that Mickey would have been just turned 18 in 2x08 and thus would have ended up in actual adult prison instead of juvie if he hit a cop. I realized a little while later that I fucked up, but I was already invested, so this is just a full on AU now, where Mickey is very slightly older than in canon and chooses a different path on the night that he goes to fuck Frank Gallagher up for walking in on him and Ian in the freezer at the Kash and Grab.
> 
> Not beta-read and I don't fully know where I'm going beyond it being a canon rewrite where Mandy is looped in on their relationship way earlier, but I think it'll be a fun ride and maybe some of you would like to come along with me? Won't be posting on a schedule because life is weird and time is an illusion but will try to keep doggedly plodding along at a reasonable pace while I weep over season 11.
> 
> Don't know how long it's fixing to be, except that there will definitely be at LEAST one more chapter. Probably longer than that, considering that I have a lot of feelings about the Milkovich siblings and how different things could have been if Mickey had had one single person in his corner with regards to his sexuality who didn't also have a vested interest in it.
> 
> Please be aware that there is going to be homophobic, gendered, and otherwise truly foul language aplenty in this piece, especially here in the early chapters. Nothing worse than what you've seen in the show, but, y'know. Fair warning and all.
> 
> Title and general vibe of the story can be attributed to "Hall of Mirrors" by the Distillers. Their whole Coral Fang album has bigtime Gallavich vibes, imo.
> 
> Enjoy!

It was just Mickey’s fucking luck that when he finally managed to pin Frank Gallagher down—stumbling out of the Alibi all on his drunken and easily subdued lonesome—the cops showed up to throw a wrench into his admittedly slapdash murder plot.

He wasn’t sure what they were there for, beyond wrestling some drunk to the pavement down at the other end of the block, but they were way too close to risk double-tapping Frank, despite Mickey’s commitment to seeing the pickled mick shuffle off his mortal fucking coil before he could open his big mouth and ruin Mickey’s life. Mickey scrubbed at his jaw and glanced from Chicago’s finest to Frank’s retreating form where he was wobbling his way around the corner.

The loose-lipped motherfucker would have to wait. It was only practical. Not like Mickey was hesitating to pull the trigger because of some pussy shit. Not like he was picturing Gallagher Junior’s face from a few short hours ago, big green eyes wet and rimmed red, voice hoarse as he insisted that they didn’t have anything to be ashamed of.

What a naïve little bitch, imagining that there was any solution to this unbelievable clusterfuck of a situation that didn’t end in blood being spilled, one way or another.

“Fuck,” Mickey muttered, and yanked the rubber mask off his head, tucking it into his jacket pocket. He slipped his gun back into his waistband, too. No need to tempt fate, standing fifteen feet off an arrest in progress looking even more like a thug than usual.

For a split second, Mickey thought about it—just marching over and slugging one of the officers in the jaw. Cops were all a bunch of weak-chinned bastards, anyway. It wouldn’t take much to lay one out, get himself tossed back into the joint so he’d at least be safe behind bars when his dad caught word that his youngest son was a pillow-biting queer.

Mickey flexed his fingers out and then curled his hand into a fist. Christ, it would be so fucking easy.

Except, shit. He was eighteen now, freshly turned a few weeks before. 

Gallagher had been ragging on him about it the day of, between rounds on the roof of a dilapidated old warehouse that served as one of their usual haunts. They’d been sitting side by side in the syrupy, late afternoon sun, both riding the tail end high off a joint Gallagher had brought with him and naked except for their boxers and socks.

“So, eighteen today,” Gallagher had said, mouth curling sly around the cigarette they were passing back and forth.

“Yup.”

Gallagher had taken a thoughtful drag. “That mean we’re not allowed to fuck anymore?”

Mickey had snorted and summoned his cockiest smirk, the one that never failed to make Ian’s eyes flash dark and hot, and shrugged, “Just don’t tell my P.O.,” as he reached over to pluck the cigarette right out of Gallagher’s mouth.

It was a stupid joke, but Gallagher had laughed himself silly. He’d still been giggling when he grabbed the back of Mickey’s neck and shoved him down onto the busted old sofa cushions they’d dragged up there a few weeks before to spare themselves bruised knees and road rash from the filthy concrete.

“Fuck,” Mickey muttered again, and turned on his heel. He paced a few steps, bringing his arms up to card his fingers through his hair, and then swiveled around and walked back the other way.

If he got arrested now, it would be the real deal.

For all the tough shit he liked to talk, the thought of going to prison made Mickey nervous. It was easy to be top dog in a juvenile detention center. The majority of the most hardened youth criminals were still working up to the big shit. Even Mickey, who had a pretty impressive rap sheet by virtue of his early, eager indoctrination into the family business, was a charge or two shy of true criminal excellence. 

His reputation as a Milkovich set him a rung above bottom-feeding weed dealers and misunderstood graffiti artists, but he was self-aware enough to know that up next to guys like his father, who were in and out of prison through a swinging door, he would look like a little bitch. Mickey liked getting fucked up the ass, but he preferred for it to be on his terms. Beside which, there were his dad’s connections to consider. 

Terry Milkovich had an extensive network of friends and lackeys inside, none of whom would hesitate to corner Mickey in the showers when his proclivities came to light. If he was lucky, they would just shank him and leave him for dead. And Mickey had no doubt that the secret he’d spent the better part of a year protecting would get out sooner rather than later, if Frank was left to his own devices. 

None of the Gallaghers could keep a secret to save their goddamn lives and Frank was the worst offender of the bunch. He needed a little sense beaten into him at the very least, but Mickey was going to have to take full-on murder off the table. For now.

Firecrotch would be pleased as punch, no doubt. Probably take it as some kind of romantic declaration on Mickey’s part, even though it was a decision made purely in the interest of survival. 

It had nothing at all to do with Gallagher’s brave little soldier pout, or the way he’d stepped toward Mickey when he tried to leave, reaching out like he wanted to hold onto Mickey, keep him close. Mickey had flinched away then and he flinched away now, locking the memory down and hoofing it into the alley while the cops mirandized their charge against the hood of their sedan. 

He turned the corner to discover that his brothers had Frank pinned with his back up against a wooden fence, slats ten feet high and bleached brittle in the sun. Iggy and Colin were right up in Frank’s face, giving him hell for the crimes Mickey had fabricated when he’d enlisted their help in killing the Gallagher patriarch the afternoon prior.

“ - has always been consensual, I assure you!” Frank was slurring, hunched in on himself with his elbows tucked in tight against his chest, hands up and splayed open in the universal gesture for mercy. His eyes were glassy and his face, under the greying beard and weatherbeaten complexion, was the hot red of a man who spent most evenings bellied up to one bar or another.

“Oh yeah?” Colin sneered. “That ain’t what our brother says.”

Frank blinked for a second, while the statement waded its way through all the bottom shelf booze saturating his brain, and then huffed, “Well your _brother_ doesn’t have a real strong leg to stand on when it comes to underage lovers, now, does he, boys?”

“The fuck’s that s’posed to mean?” Iggy snarled, and brought the barrel of the shotgun he was toting up to rest snugly under Frank’s chin. Frank gulped and tried to struggle away, but the full body-weight of two Milkoviches was more than enough to hold him fast.

He opened his mouth again and Mickey’s stomach lurched, every inch of him breaking out in a cold, clammy flop sweat.

“Hey!” Mickey barked, before Frank could let another miserable word slip. Three sets of eyes swung over to him.

“‘Bout time,” Iggy said, while Frank’s face went tight with panic. “You stop to knock over a bank on the way or something?”

Mickey leaned over to spit as he strode forward, then jerked his chin back the way he’d come and explained, “Buncha cops out front.”

“Shit,” Colin hissed, gaze flickering warily toward the other end of the alley. “How many?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Mickey snapped. “Didn’t stick around to rubberneck.” He came in close enough to clap a hand to Colin’s arm and instructed, “You two get back to the house. I’ll take care of this and catch up with you after.”

“But - ” Colin started, and Mickey raised a hand to cut him off.

“I said I got this,” he insisted, and tightened his jaw as he met Colin’s glare. Luckily, Mickey was a practiced hand at the art of big dogging his older brothers, and it only took a few seconds of pointed eye contact for Colin to tuck tail and step back.

“Whatever,” he huffed, hunching his shoulders.

“They’re gonna throw you back in if they catch you,” Iggy pointed out. He still had one hand fisted in the front of Frank’s shirt and his gun was still aimed at Frank’s head, though he’d lowered it a bit and softened his posture.

“Throw all of us in together if you dumbshits stay here with me,” Mickey shrugged and leaned over to spit again, though he kept his gaze fixed firmly on Frank’s face. He hooked his thumb toward the other end of the alley and told his brothers, “Get the fuck out of here. Pops has that run next week and he won’t be happy if all three of our asses land in the clink when he needs muscle for cheap.”

Iggy nodded and slung the shotgun up onto his shoulder, stepping away so that Mickey could take his place. “What’re you gonna do with him?”

Mickey reached up to pat Frank on the cheek, hard enough to sting, and smiled his sharpest smile. “Me and Frank are just gonna have a nice, friendly chat.”

Frank swallowed, throat thick, eyes flaring impossibly wider.

“Right,” Colin snorted, while he and Iggy slouched back toward the street. “Give us a holler if you need to move a body when you’re done.”

Mickey waved them off and waited until he was sure they were well out of earshot, one hand splayed out across Frank’s chest to keep him from running.

As if on cue, Frank lurched up off the fence, mustering a queasy grin as he said, “Hey, now, Mickerino, let’s not - ”

“Shut the fuck up.” Mickey shoved him back so hard the fence rattled behind him. “Don’t fucking talk to me like you know me.”

“All right!” Frank wheezed, waving his hands back and forth. “All right! My mistake!”

“You’re goddamn right it’s your fucking mistake.” Mickey reached under his jacket with his free hand and pulled the pistol out of his waistband. He jammed the barrel into the tender notch at the bottom of Frank’s jaw, grinning when Frank sucked a sharp, terrified breath through his clenched teeth. “You know what would be an even bigger mistake?”

Frank made a high, curious sound in response.

Mickey leaned in and snarled against his ear, “Running your fucking mouth.” He thumbed the safety off with a nice, loud click, and Frank’s whole body strung taut for a second before it started to tremble under Mickey’s hand. “What do you think, Frank? That something I’m gonna have to worry about?”

“No!” Frank rasped. “No! No, Mick - uh, Mickey, you don’t gotta worry!”

“Yeah?” Mickey sucked his teeth and pulled a face. “Funny how I don’t believe you, huh?” He yanked Frank forward just so he could shove him back again, fence juddering. “The whole fucking South Side knows your family’s business ‘cause you can’t keep your trap shut, and you know what? I don’t give a shit about that. It’s no skin off my dick if you want to air your dirty fucking laundry from here to Timbuktu, but my business? That’s _my_ fucking business. You got that?”

“Yeah, I got it! I got it! I’ll keep it to myself, I swear.”

Mickey studied him for a long second, eyes hard over his scowl. He shook his head and muttered, “Nah, man. Nah. I’m just gonna put a bullet in you right here, right now. Shut you up stone goddamn cold. Better safe than sorry, right?”

He smirked and pressed the barrel of the gun in harder.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Frank whimpered around a weak, pitiful laugh. “Let’s not be too hasty, there, Mick. I can - I can keep my nose out of your business. Hell, I - I don’t even _know_ any of your business, right?” He was panting a little, breath coming quick and shallow through a smile so rigid and pained that it looked more like a grimace. “Right?”

Mickey considered him. “You don’t know any of my business?”

“Nope!” Frank was quick to assure him, head bobbling like one of those stupid little dashboard dogs while he shook it back and forth. “Nada. None whatsoever. Never heard a word about your business! Never even thought about it!”

Mickey narrowed his eyes, staring Frank down for a long, silent second while Frank shivered and squirmed. 

“This ain’t some three strikes bullshit,” Mickey warned, just as Frank was starting to dart desperate glances to the openings of the alley on either side. “We’re not playing fucking baseball. You even _think_ about saying so much as my goddamn name where anyone else can hear that shit, I’ll drop you faster than a hooker hits her knees when the rent comes due. Nod if we understand each other.”

Frank nodded, bug-eyed and obedient.

“Good.” Mickey cheerfully thumbed the safety back into place and lowered the gun. He kept his other hand on Frank’s chest and smiled, mouth closed. “Glad we got this little wrinkle ironed out.”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed hoarsely. “Me, uh. Me too.”

Mickey dropped his hand and tucked the gun back into his waistband, stepping just far enough away to let Frank breathe. Frank shuffled a few awkward inches to the side, clearly wrestling with the impulse to flee.

“Y’know what?” Mickey drawled, faking consideration and reaching up to rub at his mouth. “Let me give you a little something to help you remember our arrangement. Call it extra incentive.”

Frank perked up, like he honestly thought Mickey was about to hand him a wad of cash or a bottle of whiskey or some complimentary blow or something, and Mickey swung hard and suckerpunched the dumb bastard in the gut. Frank made a soft ‘oof’ sound and crumpled to the pavement in a bedraggled heap.

“Consider this,” Mickey snarled, reeling his foot back and landing a vicious kick right to the meat of Frank’s ribs, “a preview of coming attractions.”

Frank gasped at the impact, still winded, and Mickey kicked him once, twice, and then a third time for good measure before he shoved his hands into his pockets and stalked off toward the street. He slowed his pace as he ambled out onto the sidewalk, aiming for something more casual even as a little voice in the back of his head was screaming at him to turn around and finish Frank Gallagher for good. The cops had cleared out, but Mickey knew from experience they’d be sending a couple of patrols around the block over the next few hours just to make sure nobody else was stupid enough to stumble their way into a disorderly conduct charge.

 _Didn’t even leave the son of a bitch unconscious, you pussy,_ the little voice mocked. It sounded remarkably like Terry, and Mickey shook his head hard to clear it out.

It was still fairly early in the evening and the Alibi was hopping enough that Mickey could hear the muted chatter of conversation from the street when he passed, even though the door was closed. A glance down the block revealed that his car was still parked at the curb, which meant his shithead brothers were probably inside playing a round of pool and taking advantage of the buck-fifty boilermakers being advertised on a sandwich board propped up against the wall. 

Typical.

Mickey considered popping in to join them but he figured Frank would shamble his way back once he managed to peel himself up off the pavement, and Mickey didn’t want to be there to deal with the fallout. He left the car where it was. Either his brothers would drive it home under the influence or Mickey would come and pick it up in the morning, when he didn’t feel like he was about to jitter out of his skin.

He took off in the general direction of the Milkovich estate, such as it was, stopping at the corner just long enough to dig a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He shook one free, along with the lighter he kept tucked inside, and sucked a deep, desperate drag as soon as he managed to catch the cherry.

“Fuck,” Mickey muttered, and leaned back to sigh a thick stream of smoke toward the dark sky. He closed his eyes for a second, took another deep breath, without the cigarette this time, and then shook his head and started back in on the slow trudge home.

This shit with Gallagher was fucking him up, had been ever since the freckle-faced idiot had surprised Mickey in his own bedroom all those months ago, with a tire iron in hand and more spine than Mickey had ever expected to find in someone that had stewed to being in the same primordial gene pool as fucking Frank. 

It had been a moment of shared insanity—or maybe just stupidity—that culminated in the two of them fucking raw right under Terry’s nose, but even now, with the small, miserable existence that Mickey had managed to eke out under his father’s brutalizing thumb on the cusp of collapse, Mickey couldn’t quite bring himself to regret going ass up for Ian Gallagher. Not that first time, and not during the many enthusiastic repeat performances since, even if it would have been way, way smarter to just pummel Gallagher’s pretty face black and blue and let the beating speak Mickey’s piece for him.

Mickey wasn’t a faggot. Not in the same way that Gallagher was. He couldn’t afford to be. 

It was bad enough that he liked having sex with dudes. His dad would happily plant him six feet under for that transgression alone. If Terry ever even started to suspect that a tiny, impossible part of Mickey thrilled at the way Gallagher threaded their fingers together sometimes when they were fucking, or wondered what it would be like to fall asleep with Gallagher’s arm slung heavy across his hips, or had to bite his lip bloody on occasion when Gallagher laughed to keep from leaning over to see if he could taste the sound on Gallagher’s tongue, there wouldn’t be a single part of Mickey left that was worth burying.

The lights were on when he got back to the house. This was not entirely unusual, except that Mickey was certain he and his brothers had left them off when they went scrambling after Frank earlier that evening. Mickey took a final drag off the dwindling butt of his cigarette and flicked it into the gutter, hovering just outside the rusted old gate. He tucked his hands into his pockets so he didn’t have to acknowledge how badly they were shaking.

He didn’t think his dad was home. Terry had disappeared with Uncle Ronnie the night before last, a duffel bag full of unregistered firearms over his shoulder, grumbling about needing to settle some business in Sheboygan. It wasn’t unheard of for the Milkoviches to complete a job early, but they were likelier to while away those extra days partying with their out of town contacts than rushing to get home.

 _Unless a little birdie told them something they really didn’t like hearing,_ that insidious voice whispered. _Something they came home to correct._

Mickey’s whole mouth flooded bitter, like it always did right before he was about to puke. He leaned over as calmly as he could and hocked a loogie into the scrubby grass poking through the chain link fence ringing the Milkovich property. It didn’t help much, but it settled Mickey’s guts enough that he managed to muster the energy to swing one jelly-kneed leg forward and take a shivery step toward the porch. He hopped up the steps two at a time when he reached them, despite the very real risk of his legs collapsing, they were shaking so badly, because if Terry Milkovich had ever taught his kids anything, it was that the only appropriate way to deal with a looming beatdown was to greet it head on.

Besides, Mickey rationalized, clammy hand gripped loosely around the doorknob, even if word that he liked it up the ass had managed to make it all the way to Wisconsin in the short twenty-four hours since Frank had walked in on him and Ian in the walk-in at the Kash and Grab, Terry wouldn’t be sitting around at home waiting for Mickey to show up. He’d be out trawling the streets with a baseball bat, looking to bring the punishment directly to his wayward son.

It was a cold comfort, but it allowed Mickey to scrape together whatever fortitude he had left in his severely depleted reserves and step inside.

There was distant rock music drifting from the direction of the kitchen, thin and tinny like it was coming from a cell phone speaker. Mickey took a cautious step out of the entryway and sagged with relief when he discovered his sister in the kitchen, humming under her breath and poking a wooden spoon at something in a saucepan with very little enthusiasm.

Mandy glanced over and lifted her chin in greeting when she saw Mickey leaning against the wall like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Hey, asswipe,” she grinned, giving him a narrow-eyed once over. “You drunk?”

Mickey shook his head slowly, scrubbing a palm over his mouth and scratching down through the patchy beard blanketing his jaw as he sighed, “Nah.”

“High?” Mandy tried, arching an eyebrow and smirking.

 _“No,”_ Mickey huffed, and rolled his eyes. “Just dealing with some shit.”

“What kinda shit?” Mandy asked, attention back on whatever she was cooking.

“Just shit.” Mickey sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, which was tucked securely inside his jacket sleeve. He pushed up off the wall and stalked into the kitchen, where he crowded up behind Mandy to peer over her shoulder into the saucepan. 

She appeared to be stirring canned peas into a box of instant mac and cheese. 

Mickey reached around her to steal a noodle but she rapped his knuckles with the spoon hard enough that he yelped and drew his hand back, clutching it to his chest. He glared at her and rubbed his stinging joints, muttering, “Where the fuck you been, anyway?”

“Shantelle’s.” Mandy lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Heard dad was gonna be gone for a few days. Figured I’d swing by and pick up some clean clothes and some shit I need for school.” 

Mickey nodded in confirmation and wandered over to the fridge. There were a few lonely cans of Old Style on the top shelf. Mickey grabbed one and popped the tab, shouldering the door shut as he turned to look at Mandy. “How long you staying?”

“‘Til he gets back, I guess.” She cut him a suspicious look. “Why?”

It was Mickey’s turn to shrug this time. He took a first, foamy sip from his beer and murmured into the mouth of the can, “Just wondering.” Mickey licked his teeth. “Probably smart, you skip out again after that.”

Mandy’s eyebrows disappeared up under her bangs. “Some shit going down?”

“No,” Mickey said. Or at least, that’s what he meant to say. He opened his mouth and everything, but all that came out was this tiny, choked raw sound. Mickey cleared his throat and turned away. He could still feel the weight of Mandy’s gaze on his face, but at least he didn’t have to look at her. “Nothing important,” he tried, and it was shaky, but audible. “Maybe nothing at all, just - better if you’re not here for it, either way.”

Mandy hummed her acknowledgment and gave the macaroni one last sticky, smacking stir. She leaned over to grab a plastic bowl from the cabinet next to the stove and asked over her shoulder, “Hungry?”

“I could eat.” This was not, strictly speaking, true, considering that there was still a lurching, seething knot of fear tangled in the pit of his belly, but Mickey had never turned his nose up at free food in his life and he wasn’t about to start now. He shuffled over to a seat and flopped down into it.

Mandy grabbed a second bowl and a couple of mismatched pieces of silverware and dished them each a hearty portion, detouring by the fridge for a mostly empty bottle of ketchup. She slid one bowl across the table to Mickey and set the other down in front of herself, hunching over it like she was worried someone was going to come by and take it from her before she could finish it. 

All the Milkoviches guarded their plates that way, Mickey included. In this household, you never knew when a douchebag brother or a greasy cousin or a coked-out uncle was going to wander by and claim your grub for their own. Mickey still had a row of faint, silvery pockmarks on the back of his right hand from when he was five years old and his oldest brother, Joey, had stabbed him with a fork when Mickey had dared to try and sneak a chicken nugget off his plate.

Mandy must be in a hell of a good mood to share even her shitty boxed mac. And it _was_ shitty, no doubt about it—none of the Milkoviches would ever be a gourmet chef—but on a night when everything seemed to be going wrong, Mickey appreciated the gesture with a tender ferocity that surprised him. Not that he would ever acknowledge that aloud.

He glanced up to find Mandy looking at him and arched an eyebrow. “What?”

“I don’t know, Mick. A ‘thank you’ might be nice.”

“Yeah, whatever, Martha Stewart.” Mickey rolled his eyes and dove in.

The pasta was overcooked and the cheese sauce was a little thin, which Mickey supposed he could forgive since he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen anything even remotely resembling a dairy product in their fridge. Mandy had probably resorted to making it with water. The peas helped give it some substance, at least. 

Mickey was about to concede this point, but he froze when he looked up, staring across the table in silent horror as his sister unloaded a thick layer of ketchup over the top of her pasta. She stirred the whole mess together until it turned a bright, orangey-pink. 

Mickey stabbed his fork in her direction, nose wrinkled as he declared, “That’s fucking disgusting.”

“It’s basically spaghetti.”

“It is absolutely fucking not.”

Mandy glanced over at him, unimpressed. “Whatever. You always put that buffalo shit on yours.”

“Yeah,” Mickey agreed, around a mouthful of soggy noodles, “but that’s ‘cause buffalo sauce is fucking delicious. Ketchup is for pussies and toddlers, in that order.” He held up his thumb and index finger, counting off each distinction as he said it.

Mandy flipped him off, lazy and unbothered, and tucked into her food. They ate in companionable quiet for a few minutes, until Mandy’s slow-simmering curiosity got the better of her and she ventured in a carefully nonchalant tone, “So. This mysterious business going down with Terry have anything to do with why you look like dog shit?”

Mickey ducked his gaze to his bowl, jabbing at the contents therein with the tines of his fork to give himself something to do with his hands. “I told you, it’s nothing.”

“Please,” Mandy snorted. Her mouth was tilted up on one side, eyes sparkling dark and playful. “You’re sweating like a junkie in detox and you look like you haven't slept in a month. What, did you lose a fucking brick or something?”

Mickey rolled his eyes but didn’t look at her. “No.” 

“Those Englewood fucks trying to poach one of Terry’s corners?”

“No! Fuck - ” Mickey huffed. He stopped himself, jaw tightening, and snapped, “It’s fucking _nothing,_ all right? Don’t get your titties in a fucking twist about it, Jesus!”

Mandy pursed her lips, gaze narrowing where it was locked onto Mickey’s face, and the knot of anxiety in Mickey’s gut crawled all the way up to lodge at the back of his throat. Mandy might be a little self-obsessed sometimes but she wasn’t stupid, and Mickey’s protests may as well have just erected a big neon arrow over his head with the words ‘SECRETS HERE’ flashing above it in all caps.

Mickey sat still and silent under Mandy’s scrutiny, only moving to drop his hands down onto the table in the hopes that his sister would overlook the tremor creeping out toward his fingertips. He wasn’t sure what he might say if she kept pressing, what he might do when the frigid tide of fear that had been threatening to capsize him all day finally dragged him under. He clenched his fists so hard he could feel his knuckles burn with the pressure.

Mandy let him twist for a few seconds longer, then heaved a long-suffering sigh and asked in that same tone of practiced removal, “Where’d Iggy and Colin fuck off to?”

Relief flooded through Mickey so fast it made him dizzy. “Alibi,” he croaked, and fumbled for a sip of his beer. “They were doing buck-fifty boilermakers.”

“Wow,” Mandy drawled, “what a deal.” She scooped up another spoonful of her macaroni sacrilege and observed blandly, “You didn’t go with them?”

“Like I said, I had some shit to take care of.”

“I’m gonna figure it out eventually, y’know.”

“The fuck you will.”

“Oh, come on. You can’t keep secrets for shit, Mick.”

Mickey declined to offer a verbal response in favor of flipping his sister the bird.

Mandy rolled her eyes. “Whatever, asshole. If your ‘shit’ wasn’t about business and it wasn’t about Terry, that just means it’s got something to do with your secret girlfriend.”

Mickey’s pulse roared to a whitewater rush in his ears and his whole body prickled under a sudden sheen of cold sweat.

“What?”

“Your secret girlfriend,” Mandy repeated with a triumphant smirk, oblivious to Mickey’s plummet over the precipice into total panic. “Look, it’s obvious you’ve been fucking around with someone since you got out of juvie. You’re in way too good a mood not to be getting your dick wet on the regular, but I haven’t seen you darkening Angie Zago’s doorstep recently, and you’re not crowing about any other local pussy, either. Ergo,” she twirled her fork in the air, “secret girlfriend.”

Mickey’s heart was throbbing against his ribs so hard it hurt. He ground his teeth together just to keep them from chattering.

“My money’s on some stuck up North Side bitch you conned into slumming it for the summer.”

Mickey didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His breath was pooling shallowly in his chest while the room swayed and warped around him, little grey dots dancing at the edges of his vision.

“Whatever you did to her, you might as well just tell me. Save us both the hassle.”

Mickey shoved himself back from the table so hard the whole thing skidded a few inches across the floor. It was a shitty wooden folding number, so it wasn’t like it took much, but Mandy choked out a high, startled noise and glared up at Mickey like he’d just flipped the whole damn thing over in a fit of rage.

“Jesus! What the fuck, Mickey?”

Mickey was panting like he’d just run a sprint, sweat pooling clammy between his shoulder blades and at the small of his back. It was through sheer force of willpower that his hand didn’t shake when he jabbed a finger in Mandy’s direction and snarled, “You mind your own fucking business!”

“Fuck you, asshole,” Mandy sneered, curling her lip at Mickey where he was standing like an idiot in the middle of the room. “What’d you knock her up or something? Daddy gonna drive his Beamer all the way down to Canaryville to bust up the thug who got his precious baby girl pregnant?”

“Fuck off!” Mickey threw his chair over into the corner, where it toppled onto its side with a clatter, and stalked into the living room. “You got no idea what the fuck you’re talking about!”

Mandy, too full of bristling Milkovich stubbornness to be deterred by the sudden explosion of Mickey’s temper, pushed to her feet and followed him. Mickey could feel the heat of her where she was hovering at his back. 

“Or,” Mandy said, sounding cheerful in that vicious, sharp-edged way she always did when she was pissed and gearing up to really lay into someone, “maybe she got sick of being your dirty little secret.”

Mickey froze, gut twisting. Mandy didn’t know, he reminded himself. She _couldn’t_ know, but somehow she’d sunk her barb directly into the heart of the matter, anyway. Mickey could hear Ian’s voice in the back of his mind, on the cusp of breaking as he insisted that he and Mickey didn’t have anything to be ashamed of, as if it would ever be that easy. Mickey’s hands were shaking, so he curled them into fists. He knew he needed to protest, to turn around and give Mandy what for, but he couldn’t even bring himself to walk away, let alone square up and look her in the eye.

“Is that it, Mick?” Mandy pressed, reading victory in the bowstrung tension drawn throughout Mickey’s frame. “She asked to meet your family or some shit and you pussied out on her, right? Or did she straight dump your ass when she realized her ghetto thug boyfriend is really just a little bitch who’s too scared to tell his sister he’s dicking down a piece of North Side tail?”

“Shut up,” Mickey croaked. “Just shut the fuck up.” There was a vice clenching around his ribs in a tight band, making it hard to breath, and a thin, funny sound on the air. It took him a second to realize that it was him, wheezing in a vain attempt to catch his breath.

“Sure,” Mandy said agreeably, “I’ll shut the fuck up. Right after you tell me what the fuck is going on with you.” She jabbed her fingers between Mickey’s shoulder blades so hard that he was forced to take a stumbling step forward, legs wobbling underneath him.

He caught himself on the back of the sofa before he sank down to his knees, managing to stay upright by virtue of both hands clutching at the pilled fabric of the cushions and the ancient, dusty afghan haphazardly bunched up on top of them. His head was spinning, and Ian’s voice was ringing in his ears. Just three choked words— _I don’t want_ —and a sound of desperation as Ian bit his tongue against a plea for Mickey to stay.

“Fuck,” Mickey spat, and squeezed his eyes shut against a sharp, sudden sting. He let his head hang, sucking tiny, desperate breaths while his shoulders shook.

“Seriously, what the fuck’s the matter with you?” Mandy asked, voice softer and lower as she settled in next to him with her hip against the couch. He could feel the weight of her gaze roving over his face, but she didn’t touch him. It was a small mercy. Mickey spared a half a second to be grateful that the Milkovich family had never been one for physical comfort.

“I - ” Mickey started, but he only managed to scrape that single syllable out before his voice collapsed in on itself. He took a breath. It was a shivering, painful thing, almost whistling where it slipped past his teeth. He could feel sweat rolling down from his temples, and when he opened his eyes again his eyelashes were wet and clumped together.

“Come on, Mick,” Mandy pressed, kicking out and knocking her ankle against Mickey’s own. There was a little wobble in her voice, like she was nervous. “You’re starting to freak me out.”

Mickey huffed a broken sound that might once have aspired to laughter and reached up to scrub the back of his hand over his mouth. He heaved a slow, shaky breath and sighed, “Fuck. I - ” He hesitated, swallowing around the thick knot at the back of his throat. “I fucked up.”

“Okay,” Mandy said, as if that were a given. “What else is new?”

“No,” Mickey shook his head. His legs still felt loose and liquid underneath him but he forced himself to straighten up as much as he could manage. “I think I really fucked up this time.”

“What’d you do?”

Mickey pressed his fingers over his eyes, digging in for just a second so sparks of color exploded across his vision. He could feel Mandy’s gaze burning into his cheek when he dropped his hand, but he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the stained sofa cushions in front of him. He licked his dry lips and admitted in a low rasp, “Tried to kill Frank.”

“What, Gallagher?” Mandy shifted so she was facing him.

Mickey nodded.

“Why the hell would you want to kill Frank Gallagher? I mean, he’s a piece of shit, but pot, kettle or whatever. It’s not like Terry’s bringing home the ‘Father of the Year’ award anytime soon.” She reached out and plucked a pill of lint from the afghan, swiping her fingers together as she flicked it onto the floor.

This, Mickey realized with a sick wash of horror, was a pivotal crossroads in the linear narrative of his existence. The decision he made in this moment would ripple outwards to change his life in ways he couldn’t begin to fathom. There was a shiver trembling under his skin, wracking his whole body with frigid pinpricks of terror. Mickey took a breath, and heard himself speaking as if from a great distance.

“He walked in on us.”

“You and who?” Mandy asked. Her voice had a strange, warbling echo to it.

Mickey couldn’t feel his heart beating anymore. He wondered absently if he might already be dead. It might work out in his favor, if he was. He fisted his hands against the sofa cushions so hard his knuckles flared white with the strain.

“Me and Gallagher,” provided that far-off Mickey. He paused for a second and then clarified, “Ian. We were fucking around in the walk-in at the Kash and Grab. Frank came in the back, caught us at it.”

The silence that settled over them was thick and painful and so heavy that Mickey’s knees nearly buckled under its weight. His head was spinning the way it did after a few too many hits of nitrous, stomach pitching and rolling like a ship in a storm. He considered for the second time inside of an hour that he might puke.

Eventually, Mandy’s voice came down like a hammer blow, shattering the oppressive atmosphere with a tiny, wounded, “What the fuck?” 

Mickey flinched and made to turn his face away, but Mandy wasn’t having it. She caught him by the shoulder and spun him around to face her. He couldn’t bring himself to meet her eye but he could see the sharp, angry downturn to her plum lacquered mouth.

“Are you for fucking real right now?” she demanded.

Mickey swallowed. His voice caught like shards of glass against the tender skin of his throat as he croaked, “Yeah.”

Mandy pursed her lips, toe tapping against the bowed and buckling floorboards. She still had her arms crossed over her chest and she looked about five seconds from throwing a punch. If she did, Mickey would deserve it.

“How long?”

Mickey risked a cautious glance up at her face. She didn’t look anywhere approaching happy, and there was a steeliness in her eyes that Mickey had never seen before. He frowned at her and rasped, “What?”

Mandy narrowed her eyes and reached out to shove his shoulder. “How long have you been fucking my boyfriend, asshole?”

“He’s not really your boyfriend,” Mickey protested mechanically. Mandy shoved him again, harder.

“That’s not the fucking point! How long?”

Mickey threw his hands up. “I don’t know!” He turned to pace away from her, then stopped and swung back around and came toward her again. “It was right after you two started your bullshit relationship. When you told us we didn’t need to kick his ass anymore.”

“After you got shot sticking up the Kash and Grab?”

Mickey shook his head. “Before that.”

“How long before?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Mickey grumbled. He considered for a second, rubbing his mouth, and shrugged. “Couple weeks, maybe. Not like I marked it on my goddamn calendar.”

“Holy fucking shit,” Mandy laughed, though it was clear she didn’t find this situation amusing in the least. “You’ve been fucking my boyfriend for a whole fucking year.”

“He’s not - ”

“I know he’s not really my boyfriend!” Mandy shook her head and scowled into the middle distance for a long moment before she tipped her chin up and flashed Mickey a curious, hurt glance. “So, are you like, gay?”

Mickey’s pulse roared back to life with a vengeance. His heart was beating so hard against his ribs he was sure they were going to end up bruised. There was no way Mickey could string the words ‘I,’ ‘am,’ and ‘gay’ together in an affirmative order. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to verbalize a simple ‘yes’ at this point. Instead, he screwed what little courage he had left to the proverbial sticking place, raised his eyes to his sister’s, and jerked his chin in a tight, miserable nod.

“Jesus,” Mandy hissed, and stepped in close. She glanced over her shoulder, as though she was afraid she might find someone there, eavesdropping, and whispered, “Does dad know?”

Mickey very nearly rolled his eyes at her, it was such a patently absurd question. “Would I be fucking standing here if he did?”

“Right,” Mandy said, chewing on her lip. “You said Frank saw you?”

Mickey nodded again.

“Shit.” Mandy shook her head. “That’s bad, Mick. You know that asshole likes to run his mouth.”

This time, Mickey did roll his eyes. He pushed up into his sister’s space, aggressive and snarling as he spat, “Why the fuck do you think I tried to kill him?”

Mandy didn’t even flinch. She was long used to the tried and true Milkovich intimidation tactics and, on top of that, she knew that Mickey would never hurt her, occasional brotherly titty twister notwithstanding.

“So, why didn’t you?”

Mickey frowned at her. “Why didn’t I what?”

“Kill Frank!” Mandy clarified in an exasperated huff. She reached out to swat Mickey on the arm, same as she did when he zoned out during one of her monologues about her shitty friends and their bad behavior. “You said you ‘tried’ to kill him, which implies that you made an effort but didn’t succeed. It doesn’t seem like it’d be that hard to whack Frank. Bastard nearly does it to himself every other weekend. So, what the hell happened?”

“I just - ” Mickey started, but he snapped his jaw shut on the thought as soon as it formed. He might have finally copped to his closely guarded sexuality in a moment of panic-induced hysteria, but no way was he admitting to his sister that he’d pussied out of putting Frank six feet underground, where he belonged, because of Ian Gallagher’s stupid fucking puppy eyes. He huffed a short sigh through his nose and said, “We cornered him out back of the Alibi, but a bunch of cops showed up to take care of some drunk pissing in the street a couple blocks down. Wasn’t up for another trip to the can so soon. Especially not on account of Frank fucking Gallagher.”

“You fuck him up a little, at least?”

“Kicked his ribs in a few times. Told him there was worse waiting if he decided to talk shit.”

“That why Iggy and Colin are up there drinking?”

Mickey nodded.

“You tell them why you were going after Frank?”

“The fuck do you think?”

Mandy’s mouth twisted, pursing against a smile. She glanced down toward the floor and knocked her foot against Mickey’s, gentle and absent. “So,” she said after a few seconds, “what are you gonna do?”

Mickey sighed and brought both his hands up to press them against his face. “I don’t know,” he mumbled into his palms, and then let his arms drop back down to his sides, fingers dragging against his cheeks as they went. “Firecrotch says Frank won’t talk, but you know how he is. All sunshine and roses and shit.”

“Is that seriously what you call him?” Mandy scoffed.

Mickey fought against the urge to hunch his shoulders and cross his arms over his soft underbelly, face flooding hot. “I call him a lot of things. You want a fucking annotated list?”

“Gross, no. Just didn’t peg you as the type for pet names, that’s all.”

“They’re not fucking pet names.”

“Okay,” Mandy agreed, in a sarcastic drawl that conveyed precisely how little she believed Mickey’s assertion.

“They’re not,” Mickey insisted. He could feel the heat of his embarrassment flaring all the way out to his ears.

Mandy held her hands up, palms turned out, but her smirk remained sharp and smug. “Whatever you say, Mick.”

“Look, just, fuck off all right?” Mickey muttered, shouldering past her while his face burned and his stomach heaved. “Forget I said anything about any of this. None of it fucking matters, anyway.”

Mandy caught him by the sleeve of his jacket and tugged him back, hard. “Fuck you it doesn’t matter,” she snarled. “That’s my best fucking friend you’re talking about, asshole. It _better_ fucking matter!”

Mickey shook her off, wheeling around to glower, “Well, it doesn’t!”

“So, what? You’ve just been stringing him along this whole time? You’re so hard up for dick that you couldn’t find it anywhere else but the walk-in freezer at the fucking Kash and Grab?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Mickey warned, low and venomous.

Like always, Mandy ignored him. She shook her head, nose wrinkling with disgust, and declared, “You’re so full of shit, Mickey. If it really didn’t matter to you, you wouldn’t be standing in front of me right now basically fucking imploding.”

“I’m not - ” Mickey started, but he bit down on the rest of the thought before it could reach the open air. He ground his teeth together, jaw clenched, and fixed Mandy with a pointed stare. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated, calmer. “Even if I - ” he stopped again and licked his dry lips. “It doesn’t.”

“Bullshit,” Mandy spat, jutting her chin stubbornly forward. She looked so much like Ian in that moment that Mickey couldn’t help but bark a little, bitter laugh.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered, gaze flicking toward the ceiling as he shook his head. “You and fucking Gallagher, man.” When he looked at his sister again, he met her eyes, head-on and defiant. “I don’t know what the fuck kind of world you assholes live in, but in this one? The _real_ one? That fairytale bullshit don’t fly. Nobody’s riding off into the fucking sunset on horseback or holding hands together at the prom or whatever other pussy romcom garbage you’re imagining, all right? My best case scenario here is hoping that Terry doesn’t kill me or leave me a useless fucking vegetable when he hears about this shit and beats my ass six ways to Sunday. It doesn’t fucking matter, okay? It can’t! Do you get that?” 

There was a faint note of hysteria in his tone by the time he finished, but Mickey thought that was fair, considering the circumstances.

Mandy sighed and let her gaze drop, shoulders falling as she relaxed. “Yeah, Mick,” she said, with a quiet empathy borne from experiencing similar horrors at their father’s hand. “I get that.”

They lapsed into an uneasy silence, neither quite looking at the other, but both unwilling to tuck tail and walk away first. They stood there for a few long, agonizing minutes, the moment stretching thick and uncomfortable between them, until Mandy nudged the toe of her boot against Mickey’s sneaker and said, “Hey.” She waited for Mickey to meet her steady gaze with a wary glance of his own and then continued, “We’re gonna figure this out, all right?”

Mickey snorted, small and bitter. “Yeah, sure.”

“We will,” Mandy insisted, bumping their shoes together again.

Mickey scooted his foot grudgingly forward to meet hers, figuring that if he was already in for a penny with Mandy he might as well sink the whole damn pound. 

“Gallagher doesn’t get it,” he confessed, surprising himself for the umpteenth time that evening in a way he wasn’t wholly comfortable with. “He thinks I’m fucking exaggerating when I tell him all the shit Terry’s gonna do to me if he finds out. And if he hears that Gallagher’s involved, you know what he - what he’ll - ” his voice cracked and broke, shattering into a helpless sound that scraped against the back of his throat.

“That’s not gonna happen,” Mandy promised, immediate and fierce.

“You don’t know that.”

“We won’t _let_ it happen,” Mandy corrected. Mickey shook his head and she reached out, whip fast, to wrap her fingers around his wrist. Her grip was warm and soft and familiar, and Mickey felt some of the tension bleed free from his posture as Mandy stroked her thumb reassuringly over his pulse point. “We won’t.”

She sounded so confident in her assertion, and fuck but Mickey wanted to believe her. The sick knot in his stomach pulled tight into itself and shriveled under a cresting wave of relief. It wasn’t gone, but Mickey would happily take a banked coal, small and easy to ignore, over the cold, persistent, bone-deep bite of fear that had been gnawing at him for the better part of twenty-four hours. He found that he couldn’t quite bring himself to speak in the wake of this sudden flood of feeling, so he nodded instead. 

That appeared to be enough for Mandy, who squeezed his wrist and let him go.

She tilted her chin toward the kitchen and quirked her eyebrows. “You wanna finish your dinner now, or are there more theatrics we need to get through first?”

“Fuck off,” Mickey grumbled, giving his sister an affectionate shove for good measure.

Mandy pushed him back, so Mickey returned the favor, and within seconds they were wrestling each other in the direction of their abandoned meal.

Their pasta had long since gone cold, or at least room temperature. Mandy nuked hers in the microwave, flooding the kitchen with the smell of powdered cheese and tomato, while Mickey elected to tough it out and eat his remaining portion halfway to congealing as it was. They didn’t talk much, but they did keep catching each other’s eye across the table and smiling, small and secretive. It was a camaraderie that Mickey hadn’t experienced with his sister since he and Mandy were in grade school, and he felt nearly giddy with it.

When they were finished, Mandy dumped their dishes in the sink—which was already well on its way to full—and spun around to lean back against the counter. She regarded Mickey for a long, thoughtful moment, and then tilted her head toward the refrigerator.

“‘Nother beer?”

Mickey eyed her warily, more than half certain that he was walking into a trap even as he agreed slowly, “Sure, yeah.”

Mandy smiled, close-mouthed, grabbed a can of Old Style for each of them, and sat back down. She slid Mickey’s across the table and held her own up, giving it a little wag in the air with a cheerful, “Budmo!”

Mickey snorted and rolled his eyes as he popped the tab on his can, refusing to acknowledge the toast on principle. Mandy didn’t seem to mind, her grin widening just enough to show teeth. She was obviously working up to something, if the way she was picking at the sleeve of her hoodie and tapping the toe of her boot against the floor were any indication. She managed a whole two minutes of companionable silence before she dropped her chin into her hand and speared Mickey with a look across the table.

“So,” she said. “Ian.”

“No.” Mickey shook his head and jabbed a finger across the table in his sister’s direction. “Absolutely not. I’m not doing that gossipy bitch bullshit with you.”

“Oh, come on, Mick.”

“No,” Mickey repeated, louder and meaner.

“Whatever,” Mandy huffed. “It’s not like I don’t know most of it already.”

Mickey’s stomach twisted, pulse stuttering under his skin. “The fuck’re you talking about?” he snarled, summoning his fiercest glower. The one that had seen many a junkie indebted to the Milkovich drug pipeline piss themselves in fear.

Mandy rolled her eyes, deeply unimpressed with her brother’s posturing, and smirked, “He talks about you like, all the time.”

“What?” Mickey felt his entire body snap rigid, head swimming and pulse rushing like an angry tide in his ears.

“Calm down, jackass.” Mandy waved a hand at him. “He didn’t tell me it was you, but he’s always going on about his secret boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Mickey choked, thin and incredulous. He and Gallagher were a lot of things, but if the carrot-topped idiot was going around calling them boyfriends, even without mentioning Mickey by name, Mickey was going to have to sock him one to the jaw next time he saw him just to knock a little sense into that pretty head.

“Oh my God,” Mandy sighed. “You’re such a fucking pussy, seriously.” She kicked Mickey under the table, so hard he yelped. Strangely, it made him feel a little better. “He didn’t get your fucking name tattooed over his heart or anything. He just says things sometimes, y’know? When we’re talking or whatever.” 

“What kinds of things?”

“Just things,” Mandy shrugged. “There’s some guy he’s fucking in the neighborhood, but he can’t say who ‘cause the guy is super on the DL. He doesn’t think the guy likes him very much, but he’s cool and funny and he has a really nice ass. That kind of stuff.” She arched an eyebrow, high and judgmental, and gave Mickey a pointed, up-and-down look. “Personally, I don’t really see the appeal, but the dumb motherfucker had a crush on Justin Timberlake, so there’s no accounting for taste, I guess.”

“Timberlake?” Mickey wrinkled his nose. “Really?”

“I know,” Mandy said, making a face and a jerky, emphatic gesture with her hand. “I told him it was ridiculous. I mean, who in their right fucking mind goes for Timberlake when you’ve got J.C. Chasez right there?”

Mickey clicked his tongue and shook his head. “No way, bitch. Chasez is totally gay.”

Mandy stared at him for a frozen moment, eyes wide, and then shook her head and huffed so hard it blew her bangs up off her forehead, muttering, “Un-fucking-believable,” into her beer.

“What?” Mickey demanded.

“Nothing,” Mandy scoffed, though the amused curl at the corner of her mouth cut the sting of her tone somewhat. “You idiots deserve each other, that’s all.”

“Fuck off.”

Mandy allowed him another few precious minutes of silence before she licked her lips, tilted her head, and asked, “So, you in love with him or what?”

Mickey flinched so hard he nearly knocked his beer over. Trust a fucking Milkovich not to pull their fucking punches. He shot Mandy a narrow-eyed glare and spat, “The fuck kind of question is that?”

“Pretty fucking simple one,” Mandy said, taking a breezy sip of her beer. “I mean, you guys’ve been fucking for a whole goddamn year. Figure you’ve gotta have some idea by now, right?”

“I was in juvie for like, half of that,” Mickey protested, but it was a weak argument and they both knew it.

“Whatever. Still longer than any of my relationships.”

“It’s not a fucking _relationship,_ Jesus.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mandy blinked at him, big and exaggerated, and touched her index finger thoughtfully to her mouth. “What the fuck else do you call it when two people are banging exclusively and sneaking off every other night to have secret dates at the little league dugouts?”

Mickey didn’t have an answer for that. He would have insisted that the trips to the dugouts were simply detours for convenient fucking while he and Gallagher wandered the streets, sharing smokes and drinking their way through whatever shitty six-pack Mickey’d managed to lift that evening, but he imagined that Mandy wouldn’t see much of a distinction. He pushed a hand back through his hair, ducking his gaze to the table. 

“I don’t wanna talk about this,” he tried instead.

“Tough titties, bitch,” Mandy grinned. She let Mickey stew in his irritation for a moment, and then added, gentler, “We gotta talk about it if we want to make a plan, Mick.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.”

“Well, you fucking got it. And if you plan on leaving Frank free to roam the neighborhood with all your secrets rattling around in his head, you’re sure as shit gonna need it.”

“All right, asshole,” Mickey sneered, throwing himself back in his seat and crossing his arms over his chest. He tilted his chin in Mandy’s direction, scowling, “You’re so fucking smart, what do you think we should do?”

To her credit, Mandy appeared to be giving this whole fucked up mess some legitimate consideration, sipping at her beer with her head to one side and her gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance. After a few seconds, she turned and arched an eyebrow at Mickey. “You talk to Ian about any of this yet?”

“What?” Mickey scoffed. “Fuck no. Why the fuck would I?”

Mandy glared at him, flat and unimpressed.

 _“What?”_ Mickey said again, slumping a little lower into his seat and tightening his arms against his ribs. “Just ‘cause we fuck sometimes doesn’t mean we sit around braiding each other’s hair or talking about our feelings or or any of that other fag shit.” Even if Gallagher had made it more than apparent that he wouldn’t be opposed to any of it, if Mickey were interested.

Mandy rolled her eyes and twisted in her seat to grab her phone off the counter behind her, where it was still piping static-edged alt rock into the room, muttering, “Jesus Christ, you’re the worst boyfriend ever.”

“I’m not his fucking boyfriend!” Mickey insisted. His face felt so hot he was vaguely surprised it wasn’t steaming outright, despite the muggy summer evening.

“Whatever, pussy,” Mandy said without bothering to look at Mickey. She swiveled back around and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table while her thumbs moved, swift and sure, over her phone’s keyboard. “Just ‘cause you’re too repressed to admit it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” The music faded for a second as a little swooping sound trilled out and Mandy made a face and turned off both the phone volume and whatever app was responsible for the tunes.

Mickey narrowed his eyes and didn’t bother responding to his sister’s accusation. “Who’re you texting?”

“Who do you think, dumbass?”

“Fuck,” Mickey hissed, and lurched across the table to try and snatch Mandy’s phone away.

“Ay!” She shoved herself back with her heels, chair screeching against the laminate as she cradled her phone protectively to her chest. “Fuck off!”

 _“You_ fuck off!” Mickey swiped at her again and Mandy smacked him, hard, on the side of the head. “Ow!” He pressed the heel of one hand to his throbbing temple and slammed the other, palm down, against the table. “What the fuck, Mandy?”

“What the fuck yourself, asshole!” Her phone buzzed and she looked down at it, dodging to the side as Mickey lunged for a third, pitiful time.

“Quit texting fucking Gallagher, Jesus!” Mickey demanded, while Mandy put her hand directly on his forehead and tried to push him away. He swatted at her, and she flinched and jumped to the side but didn’t stop.

“He deserves to be a part of this conversation!”

“I broke up with him!” Mickey bellowed.

Both of them froze, Mandy with her eyes wide and a fistful of Mickey’s hair in hand, Mickey with the lip of the table digging painfully into his abdomen and his chest heaving.

“What?” Mandy asked, voice low and dangerous.

Mickey pushed himself up off the table, hissing a little when Mandy didn’t immediately relinquish her grip. He tugged his jacket and his shirt back into place and dropped back down into his seat, rubbing at his lower lip with his thumb as he studied the stained grain of the tabletop.

“I told Gallagher we were over,” he said, managing by some feat of willpower and luck to keep his voice steady as he spoke, despite the way his insides were twisting at the memory.

“Why the fuck would you do that?”

Mickey stared at her. “You fucking serious?” he asked, halfway to a laugh. She raised her eyebrows, high and expectant, and Mickey huffed and shook his head. “Frank fucking caught us!”

“So?”

 _“So,”_ Mickey parroted snidely, “why would I risk fucking around with Gallagher after that?”

“Why - ” Mandy started, and then stopped, a bitter, incredulous smile breaking across her face. “Mick, you can barely stand to be around another human being for an hour at a time without either running them off or getting into a fight, and that’s when you _like_ someone. By some fucking miracle, despite literally everything about you, Ian stuck by your ass for a whole damn year. You’re really just gonna throw that away because the town drunk caught you with your dick out?”

“I told you, it wasn’t like that.”

“Right,” Mandy nodded. “You were just fucking. None of that fag shit like actually giving a fuck.”

Mickey swallowed and tore his gaze away, turning half-toward the door so Mandy couldn’t see his face and scratching at his eyebrow. “Right,” he croaked.

“Okay,” Mandy said, sounding brisk and pleased, in stark contrast to the vicious sarcasm of her previous statement. “If that’s all it was, it should be no big deal that he’s coming over, right?”

“What?” Mickey froze, gaze fixed firmly on the familiar disarray of the living room.

“Yeah, I figured it would be easier to hammer out a game plan in person. Ian’ll be here in half an hour. Said he had to wait for Fiona to go to bed before he could sneak out.”

Mickey curled his hands into fists, squeezed them tight for a second, and then flexed his fingers, forcing his shoulders down from the protective hunch they’d been slowly creeping into. “Great.”

“Yup,” Mandy agreed, popping the ‘p.’

“He can deal with your bullshit so I don’t have to,” Mickey continued, pushing up out of his seat and making for the hallway.

“Hey!” Mandy hollered after him. “Where are you going, asshole?”

“To fucking bed!” Mickey shouted back. “I’m done with this shit!” And then he slammed the door to his room so hard a thin ribbon of plaster dust trickled down from the ceiling.

Mickey swiped the faint white powder off his shoulder with a few aggressive strokes, made a ragged sound of frustration in the back of his throat, and then shrugged free of his jacket altogether. He threw it into the corner without bothering to look and subjected his shirt to the same treatment. He undid his belt and toed his shoes off, kicked his way out of his pants and made a beeline for the cramped little bathroom. 

He cranked one of the knobs in the tub and breathed, “Thank fuck,” when the faucet sputtered a few times and spit forth a solid stream of water. Utility bills weren’t generally a priority in the Milkovich household, but it looked like someone had ponied up to the city this month. Mandy, maybe, or Iggy, if he'd been sober when he found the bill in the mail. Mickey left his boxers on the tile and climbed in, pulling the knob to divert the water to the showerhead and tilting his face up into the spray.

He wanted this fucking day to be over. Between Frank wandering around with all the ammo he needed to effectively firebomb Mickey’s life in his back pocket and Mandy prying into Mickey’s thing with Gallagher—which was to say nothing of Ian himself, wilting like a maiden in a fucking Victorian romance novel when Mickey kicked him to the curb—he was ready to bury his head in the proverbial sand for a little while.

He scrubbed up quick and dragged on a pair of sweatpants, opening both the window in the bathroom and the one in his bedroom to let the heat and steam out. It had only been about fifteen minutes, so Gallagher probably wasn’t here yet, not that Mickey had any desire to go and check.

He popped an album into his CD player—Mastodon’s _Blood Mountain,_ because he wanted something rhythmic and angry—and cranked it just loud enough to drown out any sounds of conversation from the rest of the house. After that, he dug a half-empty pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his discarded jeans, flopped down onto his mattress, and chain-smoked his way through three of them in quick succession.

He snuck a glance at the clock. It was a little after midnight, by now. Gallagher would be here soon, if he hadn’t arrived already. Mickey drew his knees up, tapping the toe of one foot against his mattress, fast and out of tempo with the music.

He didn’t want to see Gallagher. Not now, while every inch of him felt raw and sore, like his skin had all been flayed off and left his body one big, open wound. It didn’t help that all of this was largely self-inflicted. He’d been stupid with Gallagher, so caught up in the electricity between them that he let himself get sloppy. He couldn’t make that mistake again, and the only way to ensure it didn’t happen was to put as much distance between himself and Gallagher as possible.

So naturally the idiot had accepted a clandestine invitation to sneak over to Mickey’s house in the middle of the night for a pow-wow with his nosy little sister.

Mickey grunted and rolled up onto his side, back to the wall. He reached out to turn off the lamp on his dresser, then settled back in and closed his eyes, one arm jammed up under his pillow and the other tucked down between his knees. It was something of a futile effort—Mastodon wasn’t the best soundtrack to fall asleep to, and Mickey’s mind was still spinning, all the drama of the last twenty-four hours finally catching up to him.

He didn’t doze so much as he drifted, slipping from one morbid possibility of what Terry might do if and when word of Mickey’s sexuality got back to him to another, interspersed with flashes of Gallagher’s face as he watched Mickey walk away and the unimpressed timbre of Mandy’s voice as she declared Mickey the worst boyfriend ever.

Nearly ten minutes after last track on the CD had lapsed into silence, there came a knock on Mickey’s door, brisk and tentative.

“Fuck off!” Mickey snarled, rolling over to face the wall. He wasn’t in the mood for anymore of Mandy’s shit.

“It’s me, Mick,” came Gallagher’s voice, low and almost shy. Mickey’s stomach lurched and went cold, like someone had just dropped a big block of ice right to the very core of him. His hands started shaking where he had them fisted in his sheets. 

“Can we please talk?” Gallagher asked. “Just for a second?”

He thought about calling out again, telling Gallagher to get lost one more time in the misguided hope that he might actually listen, but whatever vein of stubborn energy Mickey had been drawing from was well and truly mined. All he felt was tired. He pushed to his feet and strode across the room, pausing in front of the door just long enough to second guess himself before he shook his head, set his jaw, and reached up to engage the barrel bolt lock he’d installed a few summers ago, sick of his brothers staggering through at all hours on their way to the bathroom.

Ian, apparently hearing the bolt click into place, tried the handle. The door rattled but didn’t budge, and Mickey threw himself back down onto his mattress just as Gallagher slapped a palm against the door, banging twice.

“Seriously, Mickey?” he hollered, question colored with frustration.

Mickey didn’t answer, just pulled his pillow over his head and clamped his arms tight around it.

Gallagher smacked the door again, just once. “Come the fuck on!”

There was a soft, distant noise, the cadence of a person speaking—probably Mandy, though Mickey couldn’t make out what she was saying—and then Gallagher again, voice so soft at first that Mickey couldn’t quite hear it but rising in volume as he went.

“ - expected him to be an asshole, but I didn’t realize he was a giant fucking pussy too!” Statement punctuated with one more bang, a retreating tattoo of heavy footfalls, and the far away slam of the front door.

It was quiet for a second. Mickey cautiously relaxed, peering out from under his pillow toward the bright silver of light at the bottom of his door. There was a shadow beyond it, which meant that someone was still there, though he doubted Gallagher was sticking around just to let Mickey treat him like shit some more. With the muffled squeak of a loose floorboard, the person shifted and rapped their knuckles twice against the door.

“Hey dumbass,” Mandy said, “you wanna run after your boyfriend yourself or do I have to clean this mess up for you, too?”

Mickey’s face was hot, his throat sore. He groped for the radio on his dresser, leaning halfway off the mattress so he could start the CD over again. As the energetic strains of the first track rumbled forth, Mandy gave the door a shuddering kick.

“He’s not gonna wait around forever, asshole!” she hollered, loud enough to be heard over the music. “Get your shit together!” The vague shades of her feet disappeared, presumably as she took off to talk Ian down from whatever hard edge of rage he was riding.

Mickey waited until he was sure she was gone and rolled over onto his back. There was a hot pressure rising all through his chest, his head, like a blocked steam valve in one of the old Warner Brothers cartoons that played over public broadcasting in the mornings on weekends. Mickey didn’t realize he was crying until he reached up to press the heels of his palms to his eyes and his hands came away wet.

He sat there for a moment, alone in the dark, eyes stinging while heavy metal wailed into the air around him, then pulled his covers up over his head and curled up into a tight little ball, the way he used to when Terry smacked him. He sobbed a soft, pained, “Fuck,” into the crook of his elbow and lay there taking slow, shivery breaths and ignoring the blistering roll of tears across his skin until he tipped sideways into shallow, miserable sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm @thrillingdetectivetales on Tumblr or thrillingdetectivetales#5966 on Discord, if you'd like to talk more about these sad gay idiots.


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